By the time we reach our 40s we’ve often reached a physical plateau, but there’s no age limit on gaining a mental edge that will help us become better cyclists. Coach John Hughes’ new article, Gaining a Mental Edge: Using Sports Psychology to Improve Your Cycling, shows us how.

Whether you do weekend club rides, tours, ride centuries or race, the article will teach you how to: 1) Set goals, 2) Stay motivated, 3) Build confidence, 4) Develop a game plan, 5) Focus during an event, 6) Tactically manage your ride during an event, and 7) Deal with pain. While it is impossible to physically improve after a certain age, we can continue to sharpen our mental edge as a way to improve our cycling — without respect to age.

Coach Hughes demonstrates how sports psychology can be another tool in your toolbox to help you improve your cycling, just like effective training, good equipment and healthy nutrition. Learning the techniques of sports psychology is analogous to learning how to ride a bike, a series of skills developed over time: how to balance on the bike, how to shift, how to pedal smoothly, how to ride in traffic, how to ride in a group, how to corner and so on. It took time and practice to become a skilled rider and it takes time and practice to develop your mental skills. Most cyclists can get greater improvement from investing some time each week in practicing mental skills than they could investing the same amount of time in training! Let Coach Hughes show you how.